Super Tenere vs. '12 Wee-Strom Adv: Why?

i think the xtz is the S10

+1. After a Tiger 955 and a Tenere I came full circle back to a 650. For my local urban/suburban riding, backroads, and twisties, less is more provided it has a basic amount of torque.

I think there is an advertising problem with the S10 since I see so many low mileage ones for sale. For me, I kind of believed the hype that its a do-it-all bike, but now that I think back on it, it really is a purpose-built, long-distance, serious ADV touring machine, and comes into its own fully loaded up going 80 mph into the horizon day after day, and it will treat you well on gravel or dirt roads if your trip requires it. If you actually do that stuff, you will love it and be able to rely on it for tens of thousands of miles without any trouble. And yes, there are YouTube videos of expert riders thrashing them off-road for a day (see how reliable it is if you do that on a regular basis). If you are buying it thinking its a swiss-army knife with more horsepower, you will probably be putting it up for sale before too long. It is just too much weight for picking up, back into parking spots, stop n go traffic, and rolling down that trail that keeps getting narrower and narrower. Even if you are strong/skilled enough to handle that, its not always fun to be wrestling the bike (or worrying about smashing you $14k ride) instead of enjoying the ride.

Well put. The S10 is a adventure-bike version of the FJR and does the same mission with a little less speed, a lot more versatility, but only slightly less weight/bulk. Like the FJR, it does well with a wide variety of uses, but if you're not doing the long-distance touring mission, it's more bike than one generally needs.

- Mark

And that is what YAMAHA officially said, but it can get you through some serious stuff but that is not its primary function. It's just that if you have to get through it, it can and better than most people will give it credit for. It is an all roads touring bike primarily and as I found out a couple of weeks ago, some of them roads can be pretty bad and go for 500Km of pretty bad. Once I got over my Oh shit assumptions it was OK.

As I have always said though, the 650-900cc area is plenty enough power for anything legal, it's just that people seem to respond more to easy numbers like capacity and HP rather than "what is really necessary" for 99% of riding.

The Glee has a great motor for the real world, and if they did a more off road biased chassis with top notch suspension I would have been in there at 40% more RRP. They won't though, because they have painted them selves into the value end of the spectrum ATM. Best value out there on OZ though.

They have stuck to their guns and it seems to be working for them. Aprillia have a good 550 motor as well which would be nice to see in a full size tough chassis, but it seems it's all Enduro at the moment.

Best thing though is the choice we have now in "sensible" bikes. It's a lot easier now to find something to suit off the floor.

My ms told me the XTZ (ST10, tenere, XT1200Z....) is quite a bit better pillion bike which is important to us.
I can ride much faster on a dirt road.
Suspension is better.
Did I say the looks?
But in some areas the DL650 is better so in the end of the day they are both good bikes.

I'm sure both bikes (s10 and vstrom) are great if used for purpose that they are designed and intended for. Very often poeple buy a bike that's designed for a different purpose than the person's typical use, and that's where bashing and discrediting the bike starts and ends with a "for sale" sign not too long after. This is the mistake I saw some s10 owners making and wanted to avoid.

In my enviroment (city and tight suburb) the vstrom works great for me, and leaves nothing more to be desired. I have 1150 miles on it now, which is actually pretty amazing, considering that I was putting 3k miles a year on my other bike. I don't think twice about riding it, 7 days a week now, and i still have the stock seat on the vstrom. My other bikes use to wear me out by day 4 of regular communing.

The thing I like the best about this bike is that it doesn't remind me that it's there through some weird noise or vibrations or heavy weight constantly demanding attention. It just takes me where I want to go, without any drama, or any significant fatique, and that's what I think is important in a daily commuter bike.